Let’s not mistake the unobserved for the unobservable.
Of course, the most textbook example of this is the black swan phenomenon that Taleb, in fact, wrote an entire book on.
I read it years ago but would like to reread it and systematically think about it here.
The truth, however, is that most things that are unobservable – are not observable – yet.
In fact, this might be one of the main deficits of “science.”
But as our scope of observation widens through technology or geography, or what have you, we easily see that what once seemed impossible stands right before us.
May our errors be small and nonessential – and only of this world.
It is a very recent disease to mistake the unobserved for the nonexistent; but some are plagued with the worse disease of mistaking the unobserved for the unobservable.
-Nassim Taleb, The Bed Of Procrustes
